The Horse With My Name (3 page)

‘Because I’m the Horse Whisperer.’

‘Uhuh.’

‘You must have heard of the Horse Whisperer.’

‘Uhuh. Nicholas Evans. Book. Robert Redford. Film.’

‘No! Not that cak. The
internet
site.’

I looked at him. I was surprised he’d even
heard
of the internet. I’d always thought of him as a man who’d find a ballpoint pen new and fangled. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘you’ve lost me again.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ He fumed into his pint for several moments. ‘Okay. All right,’ he began again, ‘sorry’n all. Sometimes you get immersed in a world and you start to presume everyone knows what you’re talking about, you can’t see the wood for the trees. And I forgot your knowledge of racing amounts to brown horses and Trigger. Okay. All right. It still might work. Okay. All right. Dan, I’m the Horse Whisperer. That’s the name of my internet site. It’s the inside track on the racing game. News, gossip, rumours, all sorts of shit. Everyone who’s anyone reads it, everyone feeds me info; just like it was here with the fighting. The powers that be would like to present a nice PR job on the racing, y’know, all nice happy families and pretty horses, when the truth is it’s the most vicious fucking thing I’ve ever been involved in, and that’s including the ‘Ra. Cut-throat, Dan, fucking cut-throat. Bribery. Corruption. Doping. Nobbling. Stable lads feed me, jockeys, trainers, the man who sells the feed, the man who collects the shit, the man who pilots the helicopter, it all comes through the Horse Whisperer, and not a one of them knows who the fuck I am. That’s the magic of it. It’s completely anonymous. I mean, to look at me you’d think I was the type who’d consider a fountain pen new and fangled, not running a fucking internet site.’

‘Nah, Mark, I always knew you had your finger on the pulse.’

‘Anyway, they haven’t a clue it’s me.’

‘Who’s
they
?’

‘The money men, Dan, who else? Up to now they’ve been taking it in the arse but haven’t had the wherewithal to do anything about it. But now Geordie McClean’s muscling in, bringing his Sandy Row wide-boy mentality with him. A few innocuous stories about him and he’s slapped out a cartload of injunctions on the site; it’s been thrown off half a dozen servers already, but if you know the internet you know there’s more servers out there than you can fucking count, so he’s not going to close me down that way. The only way he’s going to do it is find out who I am and then sue me for libel. And that’s what he’s trying to do now.’

‘So that’s why you’re on the run.’

‘Exactly.’

‘And where do I come in?’

‘I need to fight fire with fire. Because his is a new set-up, because he’s brought in a lot of American expertise, because he runs the tightest fucking ship in the harbour, I’ve not been able to get a man on the inside. Nobody is feeding me info. I know he’s up to something because you don’t get to where he is in such a short space of time without tramping on toes. You know him, Dan, he’s not Mister Nice Guy. I’ve got to find out what he’s up to, but I can’t do anything while he’s chasing me from pillar to winning post. He has stables north of Dublin. I need you to go down there, ingratiate yourself and find out what the fuck he’s up to.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Dan. I need you to do this for me.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not? I’m paying. Better than you’d get here.’

‘I haven’t done any journalism for a long time.’

‘Well you should. You’re bloody brilliant.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment, coming from the King of Crap.’

‘You are. I always had time for you, Dan. And I did you more than a few favours.’

‘I know that, but . . .’

‘But what? Look at the state of you, lad, you look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, your clothes are hanging off you, you’re whiter than a ghost and you smell like a fucking dump.’

‘Thanks. Can you put that in writing?’

We looked at each other for a while. I tried not to think about what he was telling me, though I knew already it was the truth. I’d known it for weeks.

‘Dan. You’re a journalist. It’s in your blood. I’m sorry for your circumstances, but you need to do something about them. You need to get out of here, you need to get your teeth into something and it might as well be Geordie McClean. He named a horse after you and it’s worth a fucking mint. I happen to know he loved the book about Fat Boy, tell him you want to do one on Dan the Man. He’ll lap it up. He’s a vain son of a bitch.’

‘Geordie or the horse?’

‘I can’t vouch for the horse. Will you do this for me, son? It would mean an awful lot to me.’

I sighed. Everything had been going downhill for months. Like skiing down a mountain, it was rather good fun right up to the point where you came to the edge of a cliff, and the trouble was there was so much snow about you never quite knew where it was or when you’d reach it, there was just that absolute certainty that you would.

I looked at myself in the mirror behind the bar. I was not a pretty sight. The clothes . . . the hair . . . the beard . . . If Patricia had walked into the bar right then she would hardly have recognised me. How was I ever going to win her back looking like this, living like this? Corkery was right. I should get out. Get out now. Do something positive. I knew bugger
all about horses but I knew a lot about Geordie McClean. Why not fuck him up rather than myself? What had he ever done to hurt me? Not much, but since when did a journalist ever need a reason to fuck someone up? Besides, he’d named a
horse
after me.

I took a deep breath.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’ll do it.’

It wasn’t quite St Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. If I’d been walking that road I’d have seen the light and then got flattened by a chariot. But it was a start.

3

You can upset your whole system by indulging in sudden, radical changes of lifestyle. People die from crash diets. They smack their cars into lampposts when they forsake nicotine. I had to edge myself into sobriety sideways. I woke that first morning of the new era with the dry bokes and a throbbing head, the predictable legacy of the cider I’d drunk long into the night, long after Mark Corkery had departed for what he described as his latest safe house.

The peculiar thing about a cider hangover is that you think you’ve escaped it completely right up to the point where you have to move your head off the pillow. It’s at that point that your neck turns to concrete, your forehead into Spaghetti Junction and your stomach into that toxic waste lorry that has jackknifed in the fast lane, spilling its contents.

Oh shit, a knock at the door
.

I rolled up into a sitting position. Then I rolled back into a lying-down one. If it was important they would come back, or break it down. It couldn’t be the rent, the Government paid that direct. A survey. A charity collector.
A boy scout. Another knock, another
thunderbolt
; I bent the pillow around my head like a horseshoe.

Horse.

Dan the Man.

The banging came again. ‘What do you want?’ I groaned. ‘I have no money to give you. I haven’t eaten for a week. If you have any food for me please slip it under the door.’

Then I
remembered
and dropped the pillow. My jacket was on the floor, the lining spilling out of it like a clot. The hangover was momentarily forgotten as I delved into the one pocket that remained stitched – nothing; I cursed and tried the other, bottomless one; my hand extended through the lining and up into the downy material along the back and . . .
aha!

I pulled out an envelope. I’d unsealed it in the bar, of course, after he’d gone, but I’d not gone nuts with it, most of it was still there: £500, an advance, just to get me at least as far as the bus stop for Damascus.

‘Dan? Are you in there?’

Shit!

‘Stop playing silly buggers and open the door.’

‘Trish,’ I said.

There was a silence.

‘Are you going to let me in, Dan?’

‘I’d like to, but I can’t. There’s been an accident. What do you want?’

‘To see you. What kind of an accident? Are you okay?’

‘I . . . I think . . . I think it’s
broken
. . .’

‘
What
is?’ she asked urgently.

‘My heart.’

There was another silence. Then, ‘Oh for fuck sake, Dan. Just open the door.’

I looked about me. My room looked like a hurricane had passed through it, and I looked like the one with the
snooker cue had taken me drinking. ‘No,’ I said, ‘not here. Somewhere neutral. Somewhere public.’

‘Public house, you mean.’

‘Are you trying to pick a fight already?’

‘No, Dan, I . . .’

‘There’s a cafe at the end of the road. I’ll see you there in twenty minutes. I need to finish this story, I need to phone it in. Okay?’

There was another silence, then an ‘Okay.’ Footsteps started to recede.

‘Trish,’ I called.

The footsteps stopped. There was a blunt ‘What?’

‘You suit that colour.’

I could
hear
her fuming.

My luck was in. As Patricia went out the front I went out the back. There was a row of shops immediately behind my palace and I went through them in minutes, pausing only to vomit. I’ve always been a one-stop shopper. In the old days I could do the family shopping and be home with my feet up in the time it would take Trish to compose a list. It might not exactly reflect what she was after, but what it lacked in variety it made up for in ease of preparation and storage. Or to put it in Patricia’s words, ‘Just because they advertise Heinz 57 varieties, you don’t have to buy them
all
.’ This time I wasn’t after food: a clean razor, a pair of black jeans, a fresh shirt; purchased, back home, showered, shaved, aftershaved, dressed and down that road in twenty minutes. Some kind of a record.

I would tell her about it, one day, when we were back together. We’d laugh about it. She’d say, ‘You silly fool,’ and tweak my cheek, then kiss me. Admittedly the look she gave me when I sauntered confidently through the door of La Belle Epoque owed more to dismemberment
than tweaks or kisses. I slipped into the chair opposite and smiled at her. A waiter came by before we had a chance to fire the opening salvos and I ordered a hot chocolate to complement her own.

When he’d gone I said, ‘There’s no use begging me to come home, I have my own life now.’

She looked at me steadily. ‘Wise up, Dan,’ she said.

I shrugged. ‘So who’s the new guy? He looks like a psycho.’

‘It’s none of your business.’

‘Oh you think not?’

‘No.’

‘You do think not or you don’t think not?’

‘I . . . oh shut up, Dan. You’re so fucking annoying. I want to be angry with you but you just . . . oh
nothing
.’ She sighed, then took a sip of her chocolate. There was a spot of fresh cream on the end of her nose when she looked up again, but I decided not to mention it. It was probably a fashion thing. She’d always followed the latest trends. Perhaps creamy noses were in. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

‘Do I look okay?’

‘You look okay. Are you eating?’

‘Occasionally.’

‘Dan . . .’

‘I missed you at Weight Watchers the other d–– I mean, marriage guidance. You might have called me.’

‘I . . . look, I was going to . . . then . . . Why did you say Weight Watchers?’

‘No reason, just a slip . . .’

‘You think I’ve put on weight.’

‘No I don’t. Besides, you suit a little . . .’

‘I have not put on weight. I’m on a diet. I go to the gym every––’

‘Only joking, kiddo. Lighten up. You look great.’ My own
hot chocolate arrived and I took a sip, being careful to keep my nose out of it. We smiled pleasantly at each other for half a minute. It was too good to last. ‘What’s he like in bed, then? Does he take his glasses off? Or his beard?’

‘Dan . . .’

‘I think it’s fascinating when you get a new man. Of course they never last long. No one measures up.’

‘Dan, they all measure up.’

‘So how come they don’t stay?’

‘Maybe
I
don’t measure up.’

‘Maybe you don’t.’

She sat back. She stirred her chocolate with a spoon. ‘If you’re trying to undermine my self-confidence, you’re doing a good job.’

‘Good. Come home. Or let me come home.’

‘Dan, I don’t love you any more.’

‘Yes you do.’

‘I think I would know best.’

‘It’s the baby, isn’t it?’

‘It’s everything.’

‘But it’s
mostly
the baby.’

She shrugged. ‘Please don’t come around to the house any more. I’m trying to make things work with Clive . . .’

‘
Clive?
’ She nodded. I burst out laughing.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Nothing.’ I sucked in, quelled it. ‘Sorry. Clive.’

‘Dan, just don’t take the piss any more, okay? I’ve met a new man, you’re not going to like him, but that’s tough shit. I
love
him. We’re going to make it work. But it doesn’t help having you hanging around like a sore head. Just leave us alone. We’re over. We’re finished. I don’t want to end up despising you. I loved you once, it was good, then it went bad. There are too many bad things, Dan, things I can’t forget. So let’s leave it, okay? Get on with your life.
You’ll meet someone. You’ll be fine if you give yourself a chance, but you need to get me out of your system.’

I looked at her. And unheralded, a tear sprang from my eye. I wiped it. I didn’t look at her. When I spoke, I spoke quietly. ‘But what am I supposed to do?’

‘It’s your life. You’re a free agent. Do anything you want to do.’

‘Eddie and the Hot Rods.’

‘
What?
’

‘Nothing.’ I sighed again. She pushed her chair back and stood up. She looked at me for several moments, then extended her hand. I looked at it. ‘Please don’t do that to me,’ I said.

She withdrew it quickly. ‘Sorry,’ she said. There was a hint of a nod, then she turned and headed for the door.

I shouted after her and she turned. I pointed to the end of my nose. Her brow furrowed. I pointed again, then the penny dropped and she glanced at herself in the mirror behind the cash desk. Then she turned and glared back at me. The word she mouthed might have been
bastard
, but it might not. She followed it with a slim little smile, and then she was gone. Out of the restaurant, out of my life.